Love is a Dog from Hell

by Charles Bukowski

I watch those 103 pounds combing a yard and some change of reddish hair before the mirror and I feel her inside of my wrists and at the backs of my eyes, and the toes and legs and belly of me feel her and the other part too, and all of Los Angeles falls down and weeps for joy, the walls of the love parlors shake— the ocean rushes in and she turns to me and says, “damn this hair!” And I say, “yes.”

I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.

She knew what she wanted and it wasn’t me. I know more women like that than any other kind.

I need a good woman. I need a good woman more than I need this typewriter, more than I need my automobile, more than I need Mozart; I need a good woman so badly that I can taste her in the air, I can feel her at my fingertips, I can see sidewalks built for her feet to walk upon, I can see pillows for her head, I can feel my waiting laughter, I can see her petting a cat, I can see her sleeping, I can see her slippers on the floor. I know that she exists but where is she upon this earth as the whores keep finding me?

And if you have the ability to love love yourself first

I suppose that at last like the average man: I’ve known too many women and instead of thinking, I wonder who’s fucking her now? I think she’s giving some other poor son of a bitch much trouble right now.

They disgust me the way they wait for death with as much passion as a traffic signal.

There is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock.

Such comedy. There is always one woman to save you from another And as that woman saves you she makes ready to destroy.

She seems to like all the songs she seems to know all the songs each time I see her she looks better and better

“O.k., friend,” he says, “let me know if you change your mind.” I watch him walk away. Some men are always on top of their game. I am mostly always confused.

“ambition rarely has anything to do with talent. Luck is best, and talent limps along a little bit behind luck.”

The grace is being able to like rock music, symphony music, jazz… anything that contains the original energy of joy.